Editorials
Microstock and the rise of the crowd
The June 2006 issue of Wired Magazine reports that outsourcing is "so 2003.” The latest trend is crowdsourcing, “the new pool of cheap labor provided by everyday people using their spare cycles to create content, solve problems and even do corporate R & D" and it has hit the stock industry in a big way.The Wired article mentions the buzz among the SAA membership about microstock, and profiles SAA member Mark Harmel who discusses its impact on his business. Can pro photographers compete with a “crowd” of photo enthusiasts? “I negotiate my rate all the time,” says Harmel, “But how can I compete with a dollar?”
Wired editor Jeff Howe, who coined the term, established the blog to continue the conversation. In his opening post, Jeff writes, “I believe that crowdsourcing’s long-term promise is immeasurable, but I have considerable misgivings about its short-term applications and its implications for the people – like stock photographers – who will be adversely affected by the crowd.”
How did this all get started? Microstock promoters have taken what started as an image file-sharing exchange for designers and turned it into a big business of volume downloads. How big? Big enough that stock industry leader Getty Images decided it was worth $50 million to buy istockphoto.
The key element of the microstock equation is a cheap plentiful source of images, and
for this, they have effectively tapped into the crowd of amateur snappers and designers. Sadly for them - and for the pros this model undermines – is they are creating some marketable images and then essentially giving them away to advertisers and publishers for 20 cents each (a typical microstock royalty.)
A Photo District News article mentions an istock discussion board where microstockers congratulate each other when their image gets used by a major client. PDN followed up with one contributor whose image was used on IBM’s web site to ask how it felt to sell her image for a dollar. Her response was enlightening: "I don't want to have more money, it's not important, it's more important for me to see that people can appreciate my work and find it useful," she wrote to PDN. "I'm proud of it, very proud!"
Mark Harmel, the pro featured in the Wired article, sympathizes to a point: " I too enjoyed seeing my name in print when I first started in photography, but when you are trying to make a living with your talent it is even more important to see your name in print on a check," he posted to the Crowdsourcing blog.
That’s the difference, apparently. Microstockers don’t need a reliable source of income from their shooting, so they don’t think to value their talents in a marketplace otherwise pays hundreds or thousands of dollars to license images. Microstockers apparently work for bragging rights and a bit of extra cash.
And without a doubt, microstock is taking away market share from other forms of stock photography. It was only two months ago that executives from the stock mega-distributors were assuring their contributors that microstock would not affect their core businesses. Today, they offer a different take on the impact of microstock in which their companies are now heavily vested.
"There is no question that these lower-priced properties – subscriptions, micropayment, whatever you want to call them – are definitely going to take market share from the high end,” said Alan Meckler, Jupiter Images CEO, during a recent conference call with investment analysts.
Getty Images CEO Jonathan Klein concurs. “If someone is going to cannibalize your businesses, better it be one of your other businesses,” he told Wired, referring to Getty’s recent acquisition.
So who are the winners? The customers, to be sure, who now have an amazingly cheap additional source of imagery. And the companies who are making millions from the volume of downloads.
Yes, crowdsourcing has hit the stock photography industry in a big way. But, asks Mark Harmel, "Is this the great democracy of the marketplace at work? Or is it the way for a few to get rich by exploiting the crowd?"
Read the Wired article:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html
Join the conversation on the Crowdsourcing blog:
http://crowdsourcing.typepad.com/cs/
Read the Photo District News article: http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001806311
Stock Artists Alliance:
http://www.stockartistsalliance.org
This article originally appeared on www.stockartistsalliance.org and was re-published on http://www.abouttheimage.com by kind permission of Betsy Reid. Click here for more information about the author.
Posted in: Editorials, Photographers
